


You Can’t Wake Up, This Is Not a Dream (You Are Part of a Machine)

by lilmunchydoodle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Apocalypseverse Michael Possessing Dean Winchester, Castiel Comforts Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Uses Actual Words, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Dean Winchester, I'm Bad At Summaries, If Supernatural (TV) Were on HBO, Love Confessions, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Not A Fix-It, Not as sad as the tags describe, Protective Castiel (Supernatural), Season/Series 14, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:09:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28725636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilmunchydoodle/pseuds/lilmunchydoodle
Summary: Set in Season 14“I tried to kill myself”Dean has been acting strange ever since Michael released him. A very worried Castiel seeks answers and is horrified by his discovery. Destiel confessions and comforting ensues.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Michael & Dean Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 70





	You Can’t Wake Up, This Is Not a Dream (You Are Part of a Machine)

Castiel knew there was something very wrong with Dean from the moment Michael released him. Physically, he was back, living in the room down the hall and solving cases with them again. But he was not Dean Winchester. Michael’s scars adorned his skin, reminding them all of his time as the archangel’s slave. The beauty of his soul was suppressed, toned down, and shining duller than it had the entire time the angel had ever known him. Through prayers, Castiel could feel it. Senses of guilt, anger, and fear. It was all culminating in something big.

The confirmation of his state was only furthered one night in the Bunker. Dean spent most of his time away from hunting and tracking Michael in his room, locking in and alone. But he always managed to come around for meals. Dinner had become a quiet affair, with the three remaining members of Team Free Will 2.0 eating takeout in virtual silence as they waited for him. After twenty minutes, Castiel began to fidget. “Does he know the food has arrived?” 

Sam looked down at his plate, eyes filled with misery. It hurt him to see his brother like this, pretending to be fine when everyone knew he was not. “Yeah, I knocked on the door when Jack and I got home. He’s in the mood again…” 

“The Mood” was what Sam and Castiel were calling Dean’s random reclusive episodes. While he was usually resigned nowadays, “the mood” brought on hours of radio silence and bandages. Nobody was willing to talk about the implications. That was how things were with this life. The world was always ending and people always needed saving. No time for the little things. 

Jack moved his noodles around in the takeout box lifelessly and sighed. “Is Dean ok?” 

“I’ll go check on him.” Castiel decided, flying out of his chair at the excuse to see the older Winchester. Sam did not say anything in protest, only giving him a calculated glance. It spoke for itself. He thought this was a bad idea. “We’ll be back soon.” 

Walking down the hall towards Dean’s room, the angel heard it. A muffled yet tortured sobbing sound. There was no doubt that it was coming from his locked room. Immediately, Castiel rushed towards the door, flinging it open with his brute strength and finding himself horrified at the sight. 

Dean was a wreck along with his room. The furniture and decorations were torn and destroyed. He was holed up in the corner, crying into his hands, obviously trying to quiet himself further. The dripping of blood could be heard from across the room, causing Castiel to rush towards him and grab his arm. “Dean! What happened, are you hurt?” He was, his arm was sliced.

“He’s still here.” The hunter whispered hysterically as his wound was healed. There was no weapon lying anywhere near him and the cuts were too deep to be done by fingernails. “He keeps doing this to me, I can’t stop him. I’ve tried everything, Cass.” 

Castiel began to panic because he had no idea who Dean was talking about and if someone had hurt him in the Bunker, Sam and Jack were exposed. “Dean, talk to me. What is going on? Who is hurting you?” Dean just cried more, falling against his chest. “Dean, I can not help you if you do not explain to me what cut you.” 

“Michael.” He whispered breathlessly, choking on his own words. “He’s still in my head. He’s still connected to me. I-I don’t know how, but something in my mind is still allowing him in. Michael is going to use me to kill you all and I’m going to be stuck with him forever. I tried to stop him, Cass, I did.”

“Dean, Dean, it’s ok. What you did, it was to protect Jack and Sam. Michael took advantage of you. It was not your fault.” He growled protectively, glancing back down at the cut that was healing into a scar. “Listen to me, Dean. Did you do this to yourself because you feel Michael in your head or is Michael reaching out to hurt you? Because-”

Castiel was cut off by his best friend breaking down again. “He’s punishing me. He’s taunting me for what I did. I was trying to protect you.” His voice then shifted from anguish to fury. “I’m his meat suit, Cass. Everything that had to align to make me wasn’t the universe. It was some bitchass archangel that needed a toy for his temper tantrum. My parents were forced together to make me, Michael’s stupid fucking sword. I’m not a human being. I’m just his plaything, another shell that he can manipulate. A throwaway machine.”

“No, you are a Righteous Man, Dean Winchester. When I raised you from Hell, I was able to see into your soul. I rebuilt you atom by atom, making you whole again. I may know you better than you know yourself and I know that you are… beautiful. Then, now. You are still beautiful. Still Dean Winchester.” Castiel explained, taking his face between his hands to drive home his point. “Whatever you think Michael is punishing you for is not your fault.” 

“I tried to kill myself.” Dean breathed out shakily. “Not Michael, but me, Dean Winchester. Because I’m selfish, Cass. Because I’m a terrible person. Because if I couldn’t stop him, I couldn’t watch him kill you.” 

-xxx-

Michael fought back against Dean’s best efforts to hold him off, smiling as he pulled the vessel off the floor and stumbled towards the mirror. There, he was able to see the reflection of Heaven’s Righteous Man. To a human eye, he was one of them and to an angel’s, he was a wavelength of light and radiance. But to the mirror, he was the broken corpse of Dean Winchester. Wrists slit, throat gashed open, heart stabbed, eye pierced. All his methods of escape were revealed. “You manage to surprise even me, Dean Winchester. Because I’m in your head and I still find you delightfully unpredictable.” 

“Get out.” The reflection rasped weakly. “Get out of my body or let me die.” 

His pleas went ignored by the archangel in favor of pacing and looking over his wound this time, a gunshot to the head. “Every time you assume control, you don’t try to run to your angel or to find your brother and child. No, you find the nearest kitchen knife and try to carve yourself out of here.” He cackled. “It’s pathetic. You are a coward. Heaven’s Righteous Man is nothing but a selfish coward.”

“I am not a coward,” Dean growled, banging on the mirror. “You are the coward. You are running from a human, a depowered Nephilim, and a fallen angel after killing a whole world. You destroyed an entire universe and you are hiding from my family. You are scared.”

“How would your “family” feel if they knew what you did? If they knew how many times you were going to try to blow out your brains and leave them to what? Wait? Only the Winchester whores would ever even have a chance of making it up there and I’m going to drag them to Hell myself. First I’ll take your sweet and distant mother who could never truly love her son after knowing what he had become.” Michael taunted mercilessly. “Maybe I’ll kill her the same way that yellow-eyed freak did. Run her up on the ceiling and burn her alive. That will really sting.”

Dean growled, trying to step closer through the reflection of the mirror. “Shut up.”

The archangel just smiled devilishly. It was the most unholy thing Dean had ever seen and he had spent forty years in Hell. “After Mary, I’ll slaughter your defenseless Nephilim, your only legacy. The child you pushed away and tried to murder in your grief. Jackie is going to know exactly how much you hated him as I blast him right into the Empty. You will never see him again.” He paused, picking up a scalpel to toy with. “Next to go is little Sammy, the brother that you ruined after dragging him back into this life. He was free, Dean, and you took everything from him because you could not handle being alone. I’m going to let you talk to him while he chokes on his blood. Tell him everything is going to be ok as he lays dying. Lie like the obedient bitch you are.” 

“You’re a fucking monster. I said shut up!” The hunter screeched, trying to cover his ears. “This is my body!” With that, Dean resumed control, driving the scalpel straight into his eye. He watched in horror as both eyes bled out in the mirror. It would not last long, the bursts of anger never served him long. At least he could try. 

Michael hardly seemed even faced when he was back in the driver's seat, smiling and breathing in deeply. “Finally, I’m going to hurt your angel, the one that you are so desperately and pathetically in love with. But I won’t kill him. No, I’m going to lock him in a box and chuck him into the seas. He is going to live hearing the love of his eternal life cry out to him through prayers as a massacre the world.” More laughter. “So when I eventually let you go and you float up to Heaven, where will that leave you? Playing house with Daddy for the rest of eternity? That sounds like fun. An eternity of free beatings, right Dean? Or oh, are we still not supposed to talk about that?” 

His final words broke Dean down, leaving the image in the mirror to morph back into Michael’s, a suited-up man with a plan. “You are my vessel and I’m going to make you watch as I kill. Every. Last. One. Of. Them.” 

-xxx-

Castiel fell back a little bit, shocked and horrified by this revelation. “You could have told me… if you would have gotten free for just a second and prayed to me, I could have found you! Dean, we weren’t giving up on you. You were giving up on us. Why would you do this? Sam needs you. So does Jack. And I…” 

“That’s it!” Dean cried, tearing at his skull. “Nobody wants me, they need me. I’m done, Cass, I’m tired. I was tired thirteen years ago. I’m ready to leave behind apocalypses and dying and world splitting disasters. I want to be wanted, not needed. I want Sam to want me because I’m his brother, not because he’ll kill himself without me. I want Jack to want me because I’m his dad, not because he has something to prove.”

All the anger built up in Castiel wobbled, almost titering off but lingering long enough for him to speak. “You have never called me because you wanted to see me, Dean. In eleven years of knowing you, fighting by your side, you have never called me because I’m family. You only say that when things get bad. What do you want from me, Dean?”

“I want you to love me!” He cried, immediately covering his mouth like he had cursed out the Pope or something. “I know I have treated you like shit in the past… dammit man, I fucking kicked you out when you were human. When you needed me the most. I’ve left you behind, betrayed you, not trusted you. It’s selfish of me to love you because you’re an angel and you can’t love me like that, but ever since Purgatory, I have realized how much it hurts to lose you. I’ve needed you for so long Cass, but now I want you. All of you. And Michael, he knew that. I’m sorry, angel. Just leave me alone.”

The confession hit Castiel like a train. Did Dean truly not see how much he loved him? Ever since he first touched the hunter’s soul, he was in love. It took a while to learn what it was. Dean taught him everything he knew about love because he loved so fiercely and beautifully. “You, Dean Winchester, are the most infuriating man I have ever met.” He mumbled softly. “Dean, you taught me how to care about the world. Your love is so expansive that you risk your life to save people every day. I… I’ve loved you since I raised you from Hell and I will love you forever.” 

Dean actually looked shocked for a few seconds before turning awkward, fumbling with his hands. “I’m a mess, Cass. I’m a lot of work. Even Lisa couldn’t handle it and I don’t blame her for a second.” The mention of Lisa was heartbreaking. “I- I have to show you something.” 

Castiel grabbed his hands gently. “Anything.” 

The hunter sat up a bit, turning around and shrugging off his shirt. At first, the angel was confused but upon seeing what was under his shirt, he understood. Dean’s back was covered in tattoos, specifically, angelic warding symbols. They were definitely new but did not look so, the skin already healed up. “Magic. Rowena helped me out. I thought if I could ward my body against Michael he would not be able to reach me. It’s not working.” He took a deep breath. “I just wanted you to know it wasn’t because of you or Jack.” 

“Dean.” 

He turned around and was met with a timid kiss from the angel. It was not the best kiss, overall too sloppy and desperate under the guise of chasteness, but it was the best kiss either of the men had ever had. Because it was born of love. 

Once they pulled apart, Castiel cleared his throat. “We can’t be together, not yet. Because we have things we need to work out, together and apart.” He traced his fingers over the healed scars of the cuts on Dean’s arm. “And this has to stop. Promise me, Dean, that you will stop this. I will never forgive myself if I am allowed to succumb to you while you mindlessly try to find a permanent out.” 

“I promise, Cass.” Dean paused, smiling shakily with tears in his eyes. “Please stay, Cass. Never leave me again. We can figure this out, but you can’t leave. Sam and I, we want you around. Jack sure as hell does. You're his dad.” 

“Ok, my love.” He whispered. “Now come to dinner. Sam and Jack are worried. You haven’t been eating and—”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Gasoline by Halsey 
> 
> Might write a sequel if I feel like it later. I like the whole Michael arch in season 14 and i mashed a bunch of my personal HBO Supernatural headcanons with canon. This was the result. They are probably a bit too OOC but I was writing for the concept. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed. This thing is my baby so go easy in the comments.


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